Nicola Sturgeon calls for delay to universal credit launch in Scotland

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/nicola-sturgeon-universal-credit-scotland

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Nicola Sturgeon has urged David Cameron to block the introduction of universal credit in Scotland until final decisions are made on devolving new welfare powers to Holyrood.

The deputy first minister said there was a clear contradiction between the UK government’s plan to speed up the implementation of universal credit and proposals for Scotland to be given control over housing benefit.

Universal credit will merge housing benefit and five other benefits into one welfare payment. But both Labour and the Tories want housing benefit – worth around £1.7bn in Scotland – to be among the package of powers handed to the Scottish parliament after voters rejected independence last month.

Sturgeon said she had written to Cameron on Thursday calling for universal credit’s introduction in Scotland to be suspended until after Lord Smith’s fast-tracked review of extra powers for Holyrood is completed in late November and new devolution legislation agreed.

“Iain Duncan Smith [the work and pensions secretary] said at the Tory conference this week that rollout of universal credit – including in Scotland – is to be ‘accelerated’,” Sturgeon said. “Universal credit effectively abolishes housing benefit. It is not clear to me how we can have a meaningful discussion about devolving a welfare policy that is already in the process of being abolished.”

Sturgeon’s intervention is a clear signal that the Scottish government and the Scottish National party (SNP) plan to make significant devolution of welfare to Holyrood a key demand after the referendum.

The SNP’s negotiators in the Smith process – the Scottish finance secretary, John Swinney, and Linda Fabiani, an SNP backbencher – have yet to spell out which benefits they want to see devolved, and the Scottish government has not set out what its role will be in the process.

Universal credit has already been trialled in Inverness. Anti-poverty campaigners believe it could help reduce child poverty but agree it remains unclear how it can be implemented effectively if Holyrood gets control of some benefits.

A Downing Street spokesman said there would be no alterations to the universal credit timetable. “Our position is that we don’t want to pre-empt the outcome of the [Lord Smith] commission and until it has reported. Government business will continue as planned,” a spokesman said.